Posted on 01/27/2008 6:57:51 AM PST by Mo1
LOL. IIRC, it was the Italian press who first made note of this Pope’s stylish flourishes, including his shoes. :) Not surprisingly, national pride in their famous design houses came into play and Prada got cudos for his shoes, Armani the glasses, etc. It was later reported the shoes were made by his “favorite cobbler” but did not identify who that cobbler is or where he works. When asked for a response, Prada declined to say yes or no.... a discetion they extend to all valued clients :) He has also been spotted wearing Serengetti sunglasses among others. His wardrobe is pretty much dictated by his position and the occasion leaving him very little wiggle room for personal expression. I think he is kinda kewl. He has a hard act to follow but is quietly and respectfully making his imprint.
In the case of someone like a Bill Maher you consider the source then ignore him. He isn’t worth the time or energy to do otherwise.
Michigan: 9 Republican Representatives and 6 Democrats. Two Democrat senators. Democrat governor. TOTAL: Michigan=9 Democrats/9 Republicans
Florida: 17 Republican Representatives, 8 Democrats. One Republican senator and one Democrat. Republican Governor. TOTAL: Florida=9 Democrats/19 Republicans.
The defense rests and acknowledges that your nine month winters of perpetual frostbite leave you at an impossible disadvantage except when it comes to free snow cones and Democrat super delegates.
NOTE: Will the last person to leave Michigan please turn out the lights?
You brought it up, Mr. Snowflake. In the unlikely event that you one day come to your senses and flee Michigan, we'll let you relocate to Florida (everybody from Michigan with sense has already done so). But you have to promise not to bring the Levins, Conyers and Stabenow with you.
Recently, I read a surprising article in Time Magazine, of all places, and thought all of you might enjoy it also. What a shame that the larger than life subject of the article is no longer with us. I fear they are not making any more like him. The piece is a little long but, IMHO, worth the read.
Charlton Heston: The Epic Man
by Richard Corliss, 10 April 2008Nobody wanted to see Charlton Heston in the business suit or polo shirt that other stars of the '50s and '60s wore. The present was too puny a place to confine him. But put him in a toga or a military uniform from any millennium, or strip him to the waist to reveal that finely muscled torso, then let his tense, intense baritone voice articulate a noble notion, and you had Hollywood's ideal of Mensa beefcake. In the era of the movie epic, he was the iconic hero, adding to these films millions in revenue, plenty of muscle and 10 IQ points. The movie Heston was almost his own species: Epic Man.
Heston, who died April 5 at 84, was unique among Hollywood stars. Of no other actor could you say, He was born to play Moses, Ben-Hur, El Cid, Michelangelo. At the very moment Marlon Brando was freeing film-acting from good manners, Heston proved there was thrilling life in the endangered tradition of speaking well and looking great. And when he wasn't the movies' avatar of antique glory, he was our emissary to the future: the last man on earth in two dystopian science-fiction films, Planet of the Apes and The Omega Man. Heston was the alpha and omega of movie manhood--our civilized ancestor, our elevated destiny.
He was born John Carter, in Evanston, Ill.; he took his stage name from his mother's and stepfather's surnames. At Northwestern University, he appeared in a student film of Peer Gynt, and by 1950 he had made his way to Hollywood. Director Cecil B. DeMille immediately saw the actor's appeal, casting him in The Greatest Show on Earth, then giving him the role of Moses in The Ten Commandments. At 32, Heston passed as the old patriarch and aced the movie's crucial scene: Moses holding his staff above his head, parting the waters of the Red Sea and commanding the Israelites to walk on through.
Ben-Hur confirmed Heston's status as epic hero; it won 11 Oscars (including one for Heston as Best Actor). Truth to tell, Ben-Hur was long and logy, but it got the actor his finest role in his best film. El Cid is up there with Lawrence of Arabia in the epic empyrean: passionate, eloquent, with a visual and emotional grandeur. As the 11th century soldier seeking peace with Spain's large Muslim minority, Heston gave heroic heft to a pacifist warrior. At the end, the Cid, close to death, orders that his body be strapped to his horse and carried out to battle so that his presence will put fear into the enemy--a ripe metaphor for the enduring power of star quality.
As the epic form waned, Heston found new life as the ultimate loner, the only human among mutant species, in Planet of the Apes and The Omega Man. "Damn you all to hell!" he cried in Planet, as if he were Moses smashing the commandments, enraged by the weakness of humanity.
That mood eventually settled on Heston. In the '60s he marched with Martin Luther King Jr., and after Robert Kennedy's death, he called for gun control. But like many young liberals, he aged into conservatism. In the '80s he became a prime spokesman for right-wing causes and in 1998 the president of the National Rifle Association (NRA). At the 2000 NRA convention, he invoked his own Moses, hoisting a rifle above his head and proclaiming that presidential candidate Al Gore could remove the gun only by prying it "from my cold, dead hands."
Heston had a final great role to play. In 2002 he announced that he was suffering from Alzheimer's-like symptoms and, in a last burst of eloquence, declared, "I must reconcile courage and surrender in equal measure." Not even a movie hero can write a happy ending to his own life, but maybe in the enveloping vagueness, Heston had one. With him when he died was Lydia Clarke Heston, his wife of 64 years.
From start to finish, Heston was a grand, ornery anachronism, the sinewy symbol of a time when Hollywood took itself seriously, when heroes came from history books, not comic books. Epics like Ben-Hur or El Cid simply couldn't be made today, in part because popular culture has changed as much as political fashion. But mainly because there's no one remotely like Charlton Heston to infuse the form with his stature, fire and guts.
Most likely catpuppy has been out enjoying the glorious weather. The weekend was simply beautiful, all along the coast. Sunny, warm, blue skies and low humidity. Blissful :)
The odds of Michigan winning a BCS championship are approximately equal to those of hell freezing over.
Wait! I just forgot, Michigan is as close to hell as one can get without actually entering and it does freeze over.
So maybe you've still got a chance.
Indeed it was, at least all the way from PCB to Biloxi where Mississippi's recovery from Katrina continues to amaze.
Which is, as we all know, the only game that counts.
... tundra (what you poorly educated Southerners think Michigan is)
Michigan's tundra disappeared decades ago when it became covered by abandoned houses, perpetual snowfall and a thick layer of rust. As for the poorly educated Southerners, you are absolutely correct. We try to send them back home to Michigan but they refuse to leave.
NOTE TO SHARKY: People move TO FLORIDA. People move FROM MICHIGAN.
As for the football wars they were started by your shameless whining for a do-over when Michigan lost to Ohio State, which then lost to Florida. Having then repeated your flawed prediction of "big" 10 success yet again this year, you continue to choke on your yearly meal of crow. Have another glass of whine. :>)
He is a fine player in a draft year with no superstars and he is being vastly overpaid. Making a rookie the highest paid offensive lineman in the game is almost as bad as making Michael Vick the $100 million dollar man. I expect that Atlanta will overspend also on the #3 choice, rumored to be LSU's DT Glenn Dorsey.
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